Lips of an Angel
by eventide89
Summary: Inspired by 'Lips of an Angel' by Hinder. Some random post season 7 Fuffy angst that I had in my head.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy etc etc. Title belongs to Hinder.**

**A/N: Had this half-finished for a while, decided to finally get it out there. Inspired by/based on 'Lips of An Angel' by Hinder :) Possibly a very annoyingly ended one-shot, possibly will have a little more. Hope you enjoy.**

For the second night running, Buffy found herself staring into the dark from the window seat of her bedroom, knees held up to her chest and entirely unable to sleep. She was still finding it hard to pinpoint what exactly was keeping her awake, and since the quest was giving her such a headache, she had now settled on gazing at the stars that peeked out at her over the tops of distant trees and mountains in the cold, cloudless night.

A glance over to the dishevelled bed caused a quick pang of...well she honestly wasn't sure what, as she took in the girl sleeping soundly- blissfully unaware of the internal turmoil of the Chosen One.

Sighing, Buffy tried once more to psychoanalyse herself. It certainly wasn't 'the gay thing', as Kennedy had so tactfully dubbed it in conversation- no, that social taboo was a non issue- and in truth she wasn't convinced it was all about the 'no strings' sex either. Of course she felt guilty that she'd given in to Satsu, using her maybe just a little, to deal with her own loneliness, but the fact was that neither of them were under any false pretences about their 'relationship'.

No, if she was _truly_ honest with herself, she supposed she knew what was really bothering her.

It was that dream.

It was the dream she'd had last night, that she'd shrugged off as her mind filtering through some memories, some issues, some...something, but that had returned tonight in the hour-or-so of sleep that she had claimed when she had all but passed out in the bed. And what had really shaken her about the rerun was the vividness of it, the realness.

And of _all_ the people in the world to feature in a post-coital dream, was _she_ really appropriate? No, the answer was that she was not. In fact she was wildly inappropriate. More than that though, the words the two had spoken, or perhaps those they had not, in whatever space they were in, had truly shaken Buffy.

The first dream had been vague, so vague in fact that she could now remember very few details, although in the moments after she had awoken, breathless and with her heart thudding, they had been as clear as day. Now she could recall only snippets- running, Faith's figure whipping around the corner feet ahead of her; standing side by side with the dark Slayer in her old apartment overlooking the town; staring into the other girls eyes like never before as they teetered on the edge of the Sunnydale crater. There was more, she was sure, but for the life of her she couldn't find it in the recesses of her mind. Not that it mattered, it had been the second dream- tonight's dream- that had really rattled her.

* * *

_She moved slowly through the Bronze, back once again in the Sunnydale days, her senses on high alert as she felt a presence nearby. Not demonic. Could only be one other explanation. The figure moved from the back of the stage, strolling to the edge and sitting with her legs swinging over the side as Buffy instinctively moved to the same spot, her senses guiding her without thought._

"_Faith?"_

"_Hey B"_

"_What're you..? Wait, last night?"_

"_I guess. S'pose you shrugged it off same as me?"_

_Buffy inclined her head in a small nod, acutely aware and in awe of how attuned they were, even now. She let herself see it now, something she had always refused to admit. Faith had always been right, they were more alike than she had ever conceded. _

"_So, if my sources are right, you finally got that stick outta your ass and got down with some lady-lovin'?"_

_The grin was there, but Buffy couldn't quite place Faith's tone- it didn't hold the tone of light teasing that she had grown so accustomed to in their conversations._

_She glanced up into the brunette's eyes, which were boring into her, as if asking her to deny it, to claim her wrong._

"_You're not wrong." She had no idea why she felt so guilty admitting it to the other slayer. _

"_Hmm," Faith sighed to herself, her eyes and expression, usually so fierce and full of fire, now clouded._

"_Faith.."_

"_Sorry B. I uh..." she cut herself off and Buffy was surprised that even in a dream Faith would dare to sound so unsure. She cleared her throat, starting again."I guess I thought..." As before, she stopped short of voicing her thoughts, and instead fixed Buffy with an intense stare, capturing the blonde in her eyes._

_Buffy had never seen the other girl look at her the way she now was, her expression so open, her sadness so plain on her beautiful features. And it was then that Buffy realized. That she knew what the other girl was thinking without her saying another word. Maybe it was the new clarity of the dream state, maybe it was the way it was written all over the other Slayer's face. Or maybe Buffy had just in that moment let herself accept a truth that she'd shied away from for many long years._

_Her breath caught in the back of her throat as she tried to speak, tearing her eyes away from the woman in front of her to stare intently at the ground. _

"_God, Faith. I..." _

_But she found she had no way to finish the sentence. She was what? Sorry? It wasn't as if they had the kind of past that led to cuddles and love. But even as she thought that, she knew it wasn't true. She _was_ sorry, and she knew better than anyone that while the past shapes the present, the future, it doesn't dictate it. Their past mistakes and fights didn't equate to a lifetime of nothingness between them...and it certainly didn't negate the times that they'd had, the ones she'd tried so hard to scrub from her mind when Faith's betrayal had stung her the most, when she'd wanted to erase every happy memory the two of them had, just to make it hurt less. No, the truth was she was very sorry, not for sleeping with Satsu in particular, but for once again turning to someone who wasn't _her_, for once again passing a defining marker in her life in which the other Slayer had had no part._

"_You don't have to say anything."_

_Buffy dared to raise her eyes from the ground, her mind still surging with unspoken thoughts, and chanced a look at the other girls eyes, only to find that the sadness of moments before had been replaced with a hardness it pained her to see. It always seemed like this with them; as soon as Faith opened her heart and dropped her defences, just for a moment, she'd stop, retreat, feeling too weak, and raise all her emotional barriers stronger than ever._

_She watched the brunette take a shuddering breath, push herself off the stage and close her eyes for a second._

"_Hope it works out good for ya B."_

_Buffy could hear the conflicting emotions in her voice, the sincerity clashing with the regret, the jealousy, and she pondered again over her sudden prowess at reading Faith with such clarity. She broke from her musings as Faith took one tentative step forward, standing a few inches from the blonde, gazing into her green depths before leaning forward and placing the gentlest of kisses on Buffy's cheek. She lingered for a moment before turning away and striding purposefully out of the door without a backward glance._

* * *

Buffy had awoken as she had the first night, heart and mind racing, torn between letting this one too slip away, or clinging to the details. In the end, she had turned over and tried to find some more sleep, to no avail, and now here she found herself, tired eyes gazing into the night as she mulled over things in her mind. She let out a small frustrated groan and let her head fall forward to rest on her knees, eyes closed, doing her best to quieten her thoughts for a moment but meeting with no success.

With a sigh she stood, making her way for the door only to stop in her tracks at the sound of her phone vibrating loudly from the top of her bedside table, flashing its blue lights impatiently. Snatching it up before it woke the sleeping girl, Buffy hit the answer button without a glance at the screen.

"Yes?" she asked irritably.

"B?"


End file.
